Classes

After our cooking classes, some of our students seem to be becoming gourmets. I suspect this may be because they are used to fast food and we are eating well on this trip (when the comparison is to fast food, it's not hard to eat well)! They have found their own share of fast food and/or food that is inexpensive and quick, but inexpensive and quick doesn't have to mean fatty and tasteless here, and they are taking advantage of that. Each small group of students has found their own favorite little restaurants and food stands for lunches on their own. One group has discovered that they can eat well at their favorite spot for 12 lira for 4 people (roughly $1.67 per person - not that I'm trying to set a new low for the standard budget for the trip lunches!!). They get a surprisingly good meal there.

One of my intentions in giving the students a fair amount of flexibility and freedom was to give them the opportunity to make their own connections and find their own favorite spots in the city. My own experience has been that I feel more of a sense of connection to the city and to the people in it when I have made those connections and found those places and people rather than having an "expert" take me there and tell me this is somewhere I should go or someone I should like. Part of the Istanbul experience is finding the corner grocer who gets to know you and consistently rounds your bill down or greets you like an old friend because you are a regular customer. For instance, my husband Paul went to our grocer the other day and discovered that he didn't have quite enough change to pay for all the items he had selected. The grocer insisted that Paul could take the whole order and said that he trusted Paul to bring the rest of the money next time.

Part of the ownership that the students are starting to feel for the city includes knowing their way around and recognizing where in the city they are and where they can go to get something done. They no longer feel like visitors but they are starting to feel like they live here. When I was perusing Facebook the other day I noticed that a number of them have changed their home cities on their webpages to read "Istanbul, Turkey." This is an amazing thing, because they really are starting to feel that they have a home here. I talked with Carlos this morning about this, and he said he has been surprised recently to realize that he really is developing a mental map of the city and is getting into the routines and peculiarities of the city in a way that lets him navigate a lot of daily life without help. It can come as a bit of a shock to recognize that you are the one giving directions to newcomers or that you don't have to ask for help to find the freshest cucumbers in the neighborhood or to figure out where and how to refill the minutes on your phone. When another group of your classmates want to meet up for shopping or tea, you can mention a place to meet and both parties know exactly where it is and how to get there.

But I digress ... back to being gourmets. The cooking classes were incredible. The teacher is a food critic and teaches nutrition in several Istanbul universities (although I think something may have gotten lost in translation here - she is certainly a chef and seems to teach this as well). She has her own column in the newspaper. The cooking classes made some spectacular meals, and some of us (myself included) who were not even in the classes discovered that if we timed our visit right we could drop by just as the meal was being served and mooch off the chefs (to the credit of some of the so-called moochers, though, there was an all-around openness to becoming a server or a dishwasher or a table clearer, in recognition of the good work of the chefs). We've been promised recipes, and are already planning a reunion dinner to cook them.

Someone in the group asked the cooking teacher what her favorite restaurants in Istanbul are. It turns out that she consulted on the preparation of the menus and recipes at Asitane (the spectacular Ottoman restaurant we went to last week) and some of her students work there. She also named two other restaurants that are her all time Istanbul favorites. Interestingly, tonight as my family was sitting down to dinner we got a call from a group of the students wanting the name of one of the restaurants. They had decided to venture out to try one of the other favorites, since they liked Asitane so much. I'm eagerly awaiting a report back from them on what they had. Anyone? Anyone?